There are two great legal systems in the world: the civil law system; and the common law system. The Philippines is one of the few countries that successfully observes a mixed system of civil and common law, as a result of our colonial history. The Spanish colonial regime imposed the civil law system, and subsequently the American colonial regime enforced the common law system. On the one hand, the civil law system is based on antique Roman law, and on the canon law of the Roman Catholic church. Today, the civil law system is secular and capitalist, relying almost exclusivelyon written sources of law, meaning legislation. Codes dealing with entire areas of the law are the paradigm case of legislation in civil law. This is why the books in this Series alwaysbegin with the text of the Code. On the other hand, common law is based on indeginous English tradition. For a time, England was ruled by multiple customary laws. Universality was achieved, only after the King's royal deputies, known as judges, began to administer the so-called King's law, also known as common law. In sum, civil law relies on legislative text, while common law relies on case precedents. Civil law is written by the Supreme Court. The two world legal traditions are in the process of fusion. Both are increasingly based on the rule of law, and particularly on human rights law. As practiced in the Philippines, the mixed system of civil law and common law now constitute a single legal tradition. Congress passes a law, which academics analyze and sometimes proclaim as authoritative. But when a particular section of a Code is involved in the adjudication of a particular case, then the Supreme Court will occaionally use the case as a vehicle for interpretiing the law, a process which results in case law. With the Case Annotated Series, I humbly entertain the ambition of illustrating the dynamics between Congress and the Supreme Court in designing a Philippine legal tradition. To be brief and logical, I include only the Supreme Court decisions promugated under the 1987 Constitution, prior cases having passed into desuetude. This edition fetures the Insurance Code as amended by Republic Act No. 10607, which was approved on 15 August 2013. I have included cases decided by the Supreme Court until June 2013, as reported in the latest volume of Supreme Court Reports Annotated (SCRA)." -- Miriam Defensor Santiago

Text in English